How to Discern If God Calls You to Monastery Life

The author thought that she would become a nun, spending many times in prayers in front of the Blessed Sacrament and asking spiritual directors and professed nuns and ordained priests what God had in store for her. She went to medical, dental, and eye exams to prepare herself. She lived inside the monastery for three years and three months. After which, she had to leave the enclosure of the monastery walls to take care of a beloved mother in her illness. She went to hibernation for several months, asking God what to do in her life. She had been a teacher for more than thirty-three years and had retired early to discern if God was calling her to the religious life. A priest said, "If God is calling you to become a nun, go and enter the monastery, and if it did not work, at least you tried." A confessor said, "Pack up and go if they let you go."